News

Accessory developers gain options with iPhone 3.0 SDK

By Charles Starrett ● Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Among the announcements made by Apple today at the iPhone OS 3.0 preview event was newly-touted accessory compatibility for the updated OS. Using new APIs made available in the iPhone OS 3.0 SDK, accessory makers will be able to write custom applications that communicate directly with their hardware via the 30-pin Dock Connector or wirelessly over Bluetooth. While Apple used both an on-screen speaker equalizer and an open-station finder for an FM transmitter as examples of this technology in use, it is possible for this new ability to open the door for third-party gaming accessories, however, Apple did not cite either this or support for keyboards as currently announced features of iPhone OS 3.0.

Apple has also added support for stereo Bluetooth using the A2DP protocol; this feature will work on the iPhone 3G for certain, but not on the original iPhone; it is likely to work on the iPod touch 2G as well, but not on the original iPod touch.

Comments

1

Does this mean we can finally have a native Nike+ app for the iPhone? I sure hope so.

Posted by AtomicDecay on March 17, 2009 at 3:49 PM (CDT)

1

I can’t agree more with the native Nike+ app. They have a version to work with the 2G Touch why not the iPhone?

Posted by Jason on March 17, 2009 at 4:06 PM (CDT)

1

Does this mean that we can stream music to our car headunits for play????!!!!

Posted by Dennis on March 17, 2009 at 10:05 PM (CDT)

1

Does this mean that theorically someone can make an app to use the apple radio remote?

Posted by Julio flomar on March 18, 2009 at 8:54 PM (CDT)

1

Will my ipod Touch finally get a SD card reader?

Posted by Eugene on March 20, 2009 at 11:19 AM (CDT)

1

#1: It’s certainly possible that Nike could release an app that allows the dongle to be connected. However, considering that they added this to the iPod touch as a built-in feature last fall, and of course they seem to be working very closely with Apple, it’s a bit of a mystery why this functionality hasn’t already been provided.

#3: How so? You can already do this through the Dock Connector if you have an iPhone or iPod touch compatible head unit. If you’re looking for something that does raw USB-style streaming (like from a flash drive), then it certainly seems possible that a third-party app might be able to provide this, particularly since the iPod library is now going to be accessible to third-party apps. However, you’d have to leave the app in question running to play your music, since according to Apple’s announcement, the new SDK still won’t provide the ability for apps to run in the background.

#4: Theoretically this could be done, but the same restrictions as above would apply: The lack of background application capabilities means that you’d have to load up a third-party app that would use the Apple Remote (or a similar remote control), and keep it running while you were listening to your music.

#5: Again, lack of background app capabilities would likely make this pointless. Third-party developers won’t be able to write “device drivers” for the iPhone… Merely applications that access the Dock Connector. This means that while a third-party app probably could read and write to an SD card, it would only work from within that app.

Posted by Jesse Hollington on March 20, 2009 at 1:00 PM (CDT)

1

Does this mean speakers like Harmon/Kardon go + play will be able to charge the iphone 3G now?